Prospettiva Nevski

A wind at thirty degrees below zero
Unopposed on empty squares and against the bell towers
At times like bursts of machine gun disintegrated the snowdrifts
And around the fires of the red guards lit to drive away the wolves
And old women with rosaries

Sitting on the steps of a church
We waited for mass to finish and the women to come out
Then we watched with absent faces the unnatural grace of Nijinsky
And then his manager fell madly in love with him
And with the Russian ballets

Winter with my generation
Women bent over looms near the windows
One day on Nevsky Perspective I accidentally met Igor Stravinsky
And the chamber pots placed under the beds for the night
And a film by Eisenstein about the revolution
And we studied locked in a room

The dim light of candles and oil lamps
And when it came to speaking we always waited with pleasure
And my teacher taught me how difficult it is to find
The dawn within the twilight